If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

It took me a month... but I finally won a solo queue game! *breaks out the champagne*

It was barely even a game though. The other teams pick were absolutely awful against ours (they had zero carry potential... and we had 2 plus nightstalker) and basically.... the nightstalker knew how to play with lion in lane... pretty much started and ended there.

Yea. Matchmaking. My team won... but it wasn't a good game tbh. Every solo queue I'm in seems so lopsided one way or the other still, maybe it's just me.

Yeah, that mass disconnect was a load of trash. It's the first time it ever happened to me. All similar instances have been either all 10 disconnected or the game was able to be rejoined. It was going pretty well until it happened, too.

Game 2 went really well. Game 3 was, uh... kind of a mess. Our lanes should have been reshuffled. We had some okay plays, but our pushing heroes didn't get a good push and my progress as Jug pretty much died after 15 minutes. The lane went okay, but I got caught out too far, then smoke ambushed mid, and generally got nothing accomplished. I think I was feeling desperate. SF farmed well but I'm not sure about the item build. The lane confusion also had Windy building core when it should have been Mirana, etc. TL;DR - We shuffled roles and it wasn't the best mix.

Yea we were not on form there for sure. WR should not have been in a solo lane. I don't even like WR as a pick in general, I think she is pretty overrated. We could've used a tank instead.

I think WR could have been okay if used in the safelane tri to secure kills, but any guaranteed stunner would've been a good replacement. SD can have synergy with Jug, but we still missed an early kill on Bloodseeker. (I didn't dive because I thought he had shadow poison on him) Running both Mirana and Windy didn't get us much. I think Binary got ambitious wanting to ward their jungle, which was fine, but then that positioning threw us off from the assumed Mirana offlane.

We had a meh draft and got off to a bad start, but hindsight is always like what. It happens. Maybe we were riding too high after our good performances in the first two games. When we shuffled player roles, assuming all things to be equal, it just didn't work out as well. I normally don't care much about k/d/a, but going 0-10-4 on Jug was one of my more embarrassing entries in recent memory. I shouldn't carry with ~130-150 ping (Euro servers) unless we have a lane that guarantees kills.

I found a good strategy for public mm at least now.... but you need two players.... pick Bloodseeker and Bristleback.

Bristle almost guarantees a lane without too many heroes lost on your side, and potentially some or many early kills. Bloodseeker just gets 6 from hard lane and becomes the ultimate douche across the map lol. The last hit healing to stay in the lane and just level is crazy....

Don't be afraid, join the ingame channel and get an invite to the guild. Set up mumble if you have not already. There is a wide range of skill levels and RPS is a safe place to learn and enjoy the game with fellow like minded people.
If you hate yourself then solo queue and ignore the above.

A lot of us seem to be within ~200 above or below 3K MMR. I'm sure there are others like me who didn't really enjoy Ranked Mode enough to continue after calibration. So, in the end, play the game to improve and have fun, and don't get hung up about the numbers.

The best advice I can give is to watch videos from people like Purge, and always be willing to learn new things. The most annoying people in dota are the ones who think they know everything. The reality is that the game has hundreds of variable situations and very few answers or strategies apply to all scenarios. I say that as someone who's still trying to improve at that required metal flexibility. Sometimes, I've got it ... sometimes, I don't. Bad games happen, so don't be discouraged!

To be honest, dota is the hardest game I've ever played. At times, it's the most infuriating. If it were not also the most rewarding game experience (when a game comes together just right), I would not still be playing it.

I do have mumble installed from my brief flirtation with Planetside 2, so will try to make it work again.

Agreed that the game is both utterly infuriating and incredibly rewarding. When I cast the lich ultimate on a stacked group of five meepo clones in this match, my first ever game as lich, and watched it bounce between the annoying little scurrying bastards, I felt so happy that afterwards I had to go and have a lie down.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4E...0mBUpTYPAtRYiQ - XVRogueGaming is one of the best people at making guides to dota and his NSFF videos are great, he seems to go into a hole every 6 months though then appear 12 months later so he's not posted anything for 3 months (still the videos are great for learning the reasoning behind things).

Ok on to my tips:

The most common beginner support mistake I see (other than not carrying a TP early game) is simply put the Magic Wand, Magic stick is great and I have no problems filling up inventory space with branches at the start of the game (Branches are the most cost effective stat item in the game!), however if your a bit cash starved and not having a great game (even if your team is) then do not make the full Wand, that's a waste of money.

Most people don't seem to realise this but Converting a Magic Stick and 3 Branches into a wand only consolidates on inventory space, it literally does nothing else. Before hand you have the Magic Stick which gives no stats and the on use health+mana per stick charge and you have 3 branches which give +1 to all stats each. After you have a Magic Wand which gives +3 to all stats and the HP+MP / stick charge active... thats paying 150gold you don't have (Thats a free pack of wards) for getting your slots back and nothing else, if your that broke just drop a couple of the branches in your stash til you have some money.

Warding / DeWarding, in your bracket you may find people don't do much of this but as you climb the brackets people will do it more often; theres no reason you don't want to do it when they aren't though (although obviously you can't deward if they don't ward ).

Anti-Invis, some times I play with friends who have just started and it drags me down, the number 1 most common way I win a game vs new players? Buy a sentry ward as soon as Riki hits lvl 5 and pop it in his lane, murder him continually, players in that bracket do not know how to deal with that at all; feed on him til you and your lane partner are gods amongst men.

Know when to cut loose and run, seriously; especially when your not playing with your friends; alot of people that are new aren't particularly good at staying alive, as a support your one of the more squidgy ones out there and when you see 3 people ganking your carry it can be very tempting to run in and help them out. You're not wrong to want to help out, that's one of the role's of a good support but you can't stop somethings and feeding them 2 kills instead of 1 is helping no one on your team, time for a quick judgement call; what's the chance of this guy getting away if you help (base it on the play you've seen of them before in the match, not on your skill level), if its >50% then probably help out, even if you die and he escapes its a better trade than if he dies and you escape; just make sure you don't both die. Also consider can you take one of them with you or can you put them in a sticky situation. If you jump on the enemy carry and dive under a tower for the kill then all of a sudden Earth Shaker appears and locks you all in with the tower that can quickly become a 3:1 trade because you didn't expect him.

If your the only support don't try to be a martyr and buy wards, courier, courier upgrade, dewards and a mek for the team, all that will happen is you will end up very poor and with very little hp; not many supports have much stat gain in that area. My usual rule of thumb if I'm solo support with people I don't know is to say "guys I'll need a little help with support items early on if thats ok, I've got the courier and I'll get the wards later, if we get first blood can that person up the courier please?". 99% of the time that will get ignored but you tried, then you just buy wards when you can afford them but don't gimp yourself, I like to spend about 650g on myself for every set of wards I buy if I'm in this situation.

Oh and bracers are a poor supports best friend, no one ever complained that Crystal Maiden was too tanky, tranqs + 3 bracers is not a bad build for her if your completely broke buying wards.

Most people don't seem to realise this but Converting a Magic Stick and 3 Branches into a wand only consolidates on inventory space, it literally does nothing else. Before hand you have the Magic Stick which gives no stats and the on use health+mana per stick charge and you have 3 branches which give +1 to all stats each. After you have a Magic Wand which gives +3 to all stats and the HP+MP / stick charge active... thats paying 150gold you don't have (Thats a free pack of wards) for getting your slots back and nothing else, if your that broke just drop a couple of the branches in your stash til you have some money.

Long post was really great, but i do want to point out that Magic Wand can have a maximum of 15 charges, Stick can have 10. Very very minor upgrade regardless (so the main draw really is the inventory space), just pointing out the small extra.

Honestly I don't even bother playing support in randoms now, unless the entire team has picked before me/all picked carries after I pick a carry. Then I just take like Lion or something.

Characters like bloodseeker and spec and tinker and axe are just pub stompers... just gotta learn tinker lulz.

I'd like to say it's alone my play with BS that has won me some solo games finally several in a row, but it's also just because my team wasn't making it impossible either. Some were actually quite good communicating, actually ended up using voice chat with one random team and everyone was really agreeable, stomped the other guys just through that.

Originally Posted by DenieD

Oh and bracers are a poor supports best friend, no one ever complained that Crystal Maiden was too tanky, tranqs + 3 bracers is not a bad build for her if your completely broke buying wards.

I mainly play either solo or with 2-3 friends via Vent, but if any of you are circa 2k then it would be great to join up for games. I'm on most evenings after 9pm UK and my steam name is Everblue650.

To be honest though everyone here seems frighteningly accomplished...

If you're not careful the game will think you're a smurf with a winrate like that!

Playing supports is a great way to raise your mmr because everyone is greedy as fuck in pubs and you can do tons early but it's important to still learn mechanics, I played about 40 games of mid in my first 1200 games and now I get battered by most players because I don't have a clue how to play it.

I should probably learn but mid is the easiest position to fill on a team so I'll just continue to be shit for now.

If you're not careful the game will think you're a smurf with a winrate like that!

Playing supports is a great way to raise your mmr because everyone is greedy as fuck in pubs and you can do tons early but it's important to still learn mechanics, I played about 40 games of mid in my first 1200 games and now I get battered by most players because I don't have a clue how to play it.

I should probably learn but mid is the easiest position to fill on a team so I'll just continue to be shit for now.

Can teach you mid some time if you want, its got its own little meta but its easy enough. Also your honestly not that bad at mid, you very nearly had me in the 1v1 tourni / league / thing MLJ were running.

Also Bounty support is completely legit and probably my favourite hero right now, works best against bottle crowing mids and melee junglers, in this game I killed the courier carrying Troll's bottle and got about 4 kills on the jungle lifestealer in the first 10 minutes then started tracking targets for the furion to gank, proceeded to die about 3 times finding places to snipe the enemy courier from in radiant base with 600 hp.

Originally Posted by DenieD

Can teach you mid some time if you want, its got its own little meta but its easy enough. Also your honestly not that bad at mid, you very nearly had me in the 1v1 tourni / league / thing MLJ were running.

yeah I could do with learning, you'll be pleased to know I tried timbersaw. really fun hero but I still think he won't stand up to a tough offlane, he absolutley destroys natures prophet though.

Lots to read here - thanks everyone very much. Team MMR now very close to 2k (exciting!). I've been watching an awful lot of Purge videos, but the other links are new, thank you.

As for playing greedy in pubs, my typical solo queue game results in me playing a hard support, with PA, Void, Sniper and Drow as teammates. The nearest we get to something that isn't a carry is Pudge, but of course he's then played as if he is.